To this point, Robonaut's work on the ISS has been limited to such mundane tasks as "monitoring air flow from vents" and catching floating rolls of duct tape.

But Garami told the BBC that one of NASA's Robonauts is being groomed on Earth to "perform intricate medical operations like endovascular surgery."

Robonauts are controlled by humans at NASA's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. And one of the problems has been the lag time between command and response — which can be a couple of seconds or more, depending on the signal.

According to the BBC, NASA officials are toying with the idea of having astronauts control Robonaut from space, side by side, thereby eliminating the lag.